


hold onto hope (if you've got it) don't let it go (for nobody)

by movingforthesakeofmotion



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F, MY GAY GIRL POWER RANGERS, Oneshot, damn this is long, like I said i'm obsessed with these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 11:08:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10943259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/movingforthesakeofmotion/pseuds/movingforthesakeofmotion
Summary: Trini is the kind of girl who likes climbing trees and watching wrestling and meditating with heavy metal music blasting from her headphones.Kimberly is the kind of girl who likes diving into a pool half naked and chopping all her hair off on impulse.Somehow, they’re compatible.





	hold onto hope (if you've got it) don't let it go (for nobody)

**Author's Note:**

> you guys know the drill!!
> 
> Fic title from "26" by Paramore.

Trini Rodriguez has two families.

Her first family consists of her mother, her father and her two younger brothers.

Her family by blood. Her family by relation.

She loves them and they love her.

This is all by default. Some kind of evolutionary genetic mutation that passed the simple information that family equals love. Nothing more nothing less.

Trini does love her family, she does.

But she’s a young eighteen year old lesbian who has homophobic parents and lives in a household that suffocates her every day of her goddamn life.

So Trini, by default, prefers her second family.

Her second family consists of her, said eighteen year old Latina lesbian and general outsider to the general population, Jason Scott, your typical white boy ex-star football player who ended up with a house arrest anklet and the disdain of everyone at their school wondering what happened to their courageous leader turned juvenile, Billy Cranston, a young African American on the spectrum, suffering through autism with all the happiness in the world despite it, Zack Taylor, China’s answer and really, society’s answer to a modern day James Dean a la Rebel Without a Cause and all around endearing jerk that you can’t help but love and finally, Kimberly Hart, an Indian heartthrob, ex-preppy cheerleader and all around bitch who suddenly decided to chop all her hair off and become a nice person to make up for her sins.

Her second family is loyal. Her second family loves her by choice, not blood.

Her second family don’t care that she likes girls. 

She much prefers her second family.

Her parents notice her absence as of late, her mother is worried, her father is happy.

He says she’s finally breaking out of her shell. That he’s happy she’s found friends and tells her he’d like to meet them one day.

Trini decides her mother and father aren’t coming near her family with a ten foot pole.

She sneaks out every night to crash somewhere else, needing to get away, and none of the others question it.

When she crashes at Billy’s place, his mother welcomes her with open arms and lets her sleep on the couch, and Billy decides to sleep on the couch opposite her, talking a little too loudly at times as he rants about whatever is on his mind and Trini listens with all the patience in the world, content to let him talk forever, really.

Billy is calming to her, like water being stoked over a fire.

When she crashes at Zack’s place, he opens the door to his mobile home for her, shouts out to his mom that it’s just a friend, and Trini always finds without fail, a sleeping bag at the foot of his bed. He always mumbles an apology about the accommodations before crashing onto his bed and falling asleep again right away. 

Zack cares but he doesn’t care and she appreciates it.

When she crashes at Jason’s place, he always opens his window for her, helps her into his room and looks at her in concern, asks her if she’s okay, and Trini always assures him that everything is fine, she just needs to get away. He smiles and offers her his bed and sleeps on the mattress he makes on the ground consisting of pillows and blankets despite Trini’s protests that she’ll sleep there instead.

Jason is the opposite of Zack. A gentleman.

Sometimes.

When she crashes at Kimberly’s place, everything is different.

She sneaks in through the window and Kimberly lets her in with a grin and wordlessly grabs her hand and leads her to her bed, cuddles up under the blankets with her and turns on Netflix on her laptop until they eventually both fall asleep, sometimes wrapped in each other’s embrace, other times simply sleeping beside each other.

Every visit to Kimberly’s house results in her heart racing wildly and her entire body vibrating the whole night with some kind of frequency she can’t explain.

Radioactive. Electrifying.

She’s not sure.

She tries to spread her visits out over the week, visits Zack twice (because the sleeping bag is surprisingly comfortable), Billy once (because he really does talk all night and she needs her sleep), Jason once (because she can only stand to keep him away from his bed for one night and he really refuses to budge on letting her sleep on the floor instead) and visits Kimberly three times (because fuck it, she’s gay and Kimberly Hart is fucking gorgeous). 

They’re a family. A team. An unexplainable force to be reckoned with.

They did save the Universe, after all.

It’s hard for Trini.

They don’t question why she can’t sleep at home, but the truth is, she can’t be alone at night anymore.

Ever since Rita’s attack, she’s suffering from nightmares. Her parents can only take her waking up screaming in the middle of the night so many times before they start to question it and say she needs to see a therapist. 

So Trini decides that it’s so much better for her to leave by eleven at night, arrive at whatever Ranger’s house she’s staying at, sleep till about six in the morning, then make her way back home as if she never left.

She’d rather go through all that hassle than suffer through her parents asking her what’s wrong and what her nightmares are about fifty times in a row.

The strange thing is, though, that whenever she’s with the others, she doesn’t have any nightmares.

She sleeps peacefully, almost as if her subconscious is aware that another Ranger is nearby.

That she’s safe, no matter what.

This continues for about two months after they save the Universe before Kimberly finally looks at her with a frown in the cafeteria one afternoon and says something that makes Trini look at her in blank shock for two minutes straight.

“Instead of you running around all the time, why don’t we come stay with you?” 

Trini has a million reasons why they shouldn’t enter her mind at once and she voices them, all of them crashing against each other in a kaleidoscope of jumbled words. 

“My parents...they’re crazy, they don’t...I can’t...they find out-.”

“They don’t have to find out. We’ll sneak in like you do with us, and my parents don’t care if I sleep at a friend’s house. I can stay there the whole time, no issues.”

“Yeah, same.” Jason says. 

“I would, but I can’t leave my mom.” Zack says, a frown marring his features. Zack told them his mom had been getting worse, so Trini doesn’t blame him, but she sees an opportunity to shut the whole thing down when Kimberly grins.

“No problem. On those nights, you can go to Zack’s.”

“You can come to mine, too. My mom likes having you there.” Billy says, like it’s the most obvious statement in the world, like his mother would be crazy not to like Trini. But Trini knows the main reason he’s saying this is because he’d be uncomfortable staying somewhere he doesn’t know, and Trini wishes he could trust them enough to just voice that and know they wouldn’t judge.

The thing about scars is that they never fade. Emotionally, physically, mentally...they’re there forever once they carve their way into you.

“Guys-.”

“It’s done, Trini.” Kimberly pokes her cheek with her index finger, a grin on her face and Trini has no fight left in her to argue, simply sags in her seat in defeat.

Kimberly spends the entirety of biology writing down a chart for Trini.

“See, so on Mondays, I’ll come to your place. Tuesdays, you go to Zack’s. Wednesdays, Jason will come to yours. Thursdays is Billy’s day. Fridays are my day, I’ll come to you. Saturday is Zack’s day again, you go to his, and Sunday I’ll come to yours again. Works out perfectly.”

“You organized a fucking chart? You’re insane.”

“I’m practical. Now today is Friday, so, it’s my day. I’ll be at yours by eleven!” She almost looks excited, and Trini can’t contain the groan that escapes her.

They head to the Pit to practice after school, as usual, and eventually head home by six. Trini gets home just before curfew at seven, ignores the way her mother purses her lips and asks her where she’s been and instead heads straight for her room.

Her parents go to bed at ten, come in to say goodnight, her mother berates her to go to bed early so she can make it to detention tomorrow, then spends a good minute rambling in Spanish about how she shouldn’t be in detention in the first place before her father ushers her out.

Kimberly arrives at eleven on the dot with a bag of Krispy Kreme donuts and a grin.

“Made a pit stop.” She says in a low voice.

“Of course you did.” But Trini can’t help but smile as Kimberly enters her room with a huff, holding the donuts to her chest as if they hold the answer to life before Trini closes the window slowly, stopping just before it goes down the unoiled and ungreased part that makes it squeak loudly. 

Kimberly looks around her room with a grin, looks at the painted yellow walls and raises an eyebrow.

“You didn’t paint your room yellow after-.”

“Nope, I wanted black walls when we first moved in, my mother decided to go the opposite.” Trini grumbles. Kimberly chuckles under her breath.

“It’s like she knew.” Trini doesn’t reply, just rolls her eyes and drags Kimberly over to her bed.

They sit there with a headphone in each ear, watching Netflix and eating their donuts until Kimberly yawns and Trini shuts her laptop and curls up under the blankets.

Kimberly pokes her in the ribs and Trini turns to face her.

“Hey, I know you’re super into girls, but do you think Jason is cute?” She asks. Trini’s expression says it all and Kimberly stifles a laugh.

“Right. Sorry.” 

The truth is, there’s only one person on the team Trini thinks is cute and she’d rather cut off all the fingers on her left hand than tell her.

“If you like him, tell him.” Trini says instead, trying not to curse herself at how ironic it is that she’s telling Kimberly to tell Jason how she feels when she’s currently avoiding doing the exact same thing to the girl beside her.

“That’s the thing. I do like him...but not in that way. He’s like a brother to me. Zack and Billy, too. They’re my family.”

Trini doesn’t comment about the fact that Kimberly doesn’t say Trini is like a sister to her, but instead nods and looks up at the ceiling.

“Yeah, I feel the same way.” She turns to face Kimberly with a frown.

“So then why are you asking me if I think he’s cute?” Kimberly sighs.

“Because I think he likes me that way and I’m trying to turn over a new leaf by being nice, and that involves not letting down one of the nicest guys I know by telling him I don’t feel the same way. I mean it wouldn’t be horrible...dating Jason.” She says with a shrug. Trini sighs and shakes her head.

“Don’t do that. Don’t date him if you don’t like him, you’ll just...you’ll get his hopes up thinking you really like him and then you’ll realize you’re dating him for no reason and you’ll dump him and he’ll be heartbroken. It’d be worse than you telling him the truth.” Trini’s avoiding eye contact with Kimberly, trying not to cry as she plays with the split ends of her hair, rolling them between her fingers and she can feel Kimberly’s eyes on her.

“Speaking from experience there, Trin?” She asks softly. Trini rolls over until she’s no longer facing Kimberly.

“Just don’t do it.” She mumbles. 

“Okay.” Is all Kimberly says, and then she’s wrapping an arm around Trini’s waist and resting her head against Trini’s back and it takes approximately two hours after Kimberly’s passed out behind her for her to calm her breathing down and another hour for her to actually fall asleep. 

Trini’s alarm goes off at seven the next morning and as soon as she hears her mother’s footsteps coming toward her room, she shakes Kimberly to consciousness, ignores her little huff of annoyance at being abruptly woken and unceremoniously shoves her off the bed and hisses at her to roll under it. Her mother opens the door, barely looks at her as she tells her to get up and get ready for detention and shuts the door behind her as she leaves.

Trini breathes out a sigh of relief and swings around until she’s looking under the bed to find Kimberly grinning at her.

“Morning.” She says with a yawn.

They both get ready in the bathroom that Trini thankfully has a door to in her own room, which means they don’t have to sneak around in the hallway to get to it (Trini does, however, lock the door that leads to the bathroom in her room and the one in the hallway so no one can come in), and Kimberly climbs out of the window and rushes past the front lawn with an added Ranger boost to make sure she isn’t seen, mumbling something about how Zordon won’t mind her using her powers for personal gain if that personal gain involves her not being killed by Trini’s mother. 

Detention is a bore that afternoon, all five Power Rangers choosing to entertain themselves by flicking notes at each other so fast that no one sees them. Zack sends one to Trini that makes her glare at him with the fire of a thousand suns.

_How did ur date with Kimberly go last nite?_

It’s surrounded by about ten hearts, and Trini harshly writes underneath it.

_Improve your grammar, then I’ll talk to you._

She throws it at him so fast and hard, it hits him on the head and he makes a noise somewhere between a shriek and a yelp of surprise. 

He doesn’t respond after that.

Once detention is over, the five of them ignore the usual glances and stares of the other troublemakers in detention who wonder what the hell the ex-star football player, the Autistic kid, the quiet emo girl, the rebellious misfit and the bitchy ex-cheerleader all have in common to be this close knit that they never leave each other’s sides.

Trini has half a mind to tell them to watch The Breakfast Club, realize it’s not all that uncommon and shut the fuck up. 

They head to the Pit, train for three hours until they’re all bruised and bloody and walking away with triumphant grins despite the massive amounts of pain they’re in.

Something that they didn’t realize, but slowly begin to discover is that when they’re hurt, the healing process takes only a few hours, depending on how severe the injury is, but cuts and scrapes still leave a faint scar behind. 

Zack complains that it’s diminishing his good looks. Zordon tells him to wear the scars with pride.

Trini wonders how many scars Zordon had when he was more than just a disembodied voice and a pixelated face. 

They head to Billy’s house and watch movies in his living room. His mom brings in chips and dip and gummy bears like they’re all five years old and Billy and Zack are the happiest Trini has ever seen them. Zack eats an entire bag of chips to himself and Billy spends ten minutes color coding the candy and takes all the blue bears, gives all the yellow ones to Trini, the pink ones to Kimberly, the red ones to Jason and then stares at Zack because there’s no black gummy bears. 

“That’s racist.” Zack says, and Billy laughs so hard he starts snorting.

They somehow all end up entangled with each other as the night goes on. Jason lays on the couch and Kimberly sits on the far end of it with his legs in her lap, her hand snaking past his legs to reach for Trini, who’s sitting on the ground with her back pressed against the couch and her arms resting along it. Eventually, Billy and Zack rest on either side of Trini, both their heads in her lap, and Trini hums in content as Kimberly tugs a little on her hair while running her fingers through it and Jason begins tracing patterns on her forearm. 

If Billy’s mother finds it weird how close they are, she doesn’t comment, simply comes in at around seven and asks them if they’re staying the night. 

Trini shakes her head, but Billy grins and asks his mother if it’s okay.

“Well, I’ve only got one spare bedroom, if you all don’t mind sharing.”

“Of course not, Mrs. Cranston.” Jason says.

Trini looks at Jason, and he smiles, gripping her forearm.

“Stay.” He says softly. Trini bites her lip, grabs her phone, shoots a text to her father saying she’s staying at a friend’s house.

He calls four seconds later. 

Asks who the friend is, where she is, is she safe, wants to speak to the mother or father of the friend, and Trini groans and tells him to forget it, she’ll be home soon. 

Zack looks at her sadly, she winks at him and tells him she’ll be back. 

She heads home, goes to her room without a word, her parents come in and say goodnight at eleven on the dot and she’s out of the house by ten past.

When she reaches Billy’s house again, Billy and Zack are sleeping on the couches in the living room, Jason’s on the floor in the sleeping bag she usually sleeps in at Zack’s house and Kimberly is still watching TV.

She grins when Trini walks through the front door, shuts the TV off, grips her hand and drags her across the hall to the guest bedroom.

And for the second night in a row, Trini falls asleep with Kimberly pressed up against her tightly. 

Her alarm goes off at six as usual, and she detangles her body from Kimberly’s, watches her roll over and continue sleeping with a smile and sneaks out as quietly as she can. She gazes fondly at the boys crashed out in the living room for a few moments, then heads home. 

She barely makes it into her room and under the covers before her door opens and her mom tells her to wake up. She doesn’t notice that her daughter is sweaty and out of breath, and Trini is thankful for once in her life that her mother is too angry at her to over observe her behavior. 

She eats breakfast, grumbles about how she doesn’t want to go to church today, endures her mother snapping at her that as long as she lives under her roof, she will go to church, resists the urge to say she doesn’t want to live under her roof anymore and instead dresses herself up as nicely as she possibly can, which still earns her a disdainful look from her father before they all head to church.

She texts throughout the entire service, and she can see her mother’s face turning redder and redder as she does, but Trini feels she doesn’t owe God a thing.

All he’s done is make her life miserable by making her gay and giving her homophobic parents all because of their strong belief in him, so no, she won’t pay attention and she won’t care.

She’s already going to hell anyway.

She texts her fellow Rangers, asks them what they’re doing.

Kimberly’s spending the day at some event with her family, Jason and Billy are hanging out at Billy’s place and Zack is looking after his mother. 

Kimberly sends her a sad face emoji and an apology and says she’d rather spend the day hanging out with her.

Trini tries not to read into it.

She texts Billy and asks him if she can come over, and he sends her a thumbs up emoji. 

Trini wonders when they all started communicating in emoji’s and finally decides she’s tortured her mother enough and pretends to listen as the Priest drones on.  
When the service is over, Trini makes an excuse about needing to work on a school project at a friend’s house and leaves without looking back.

It’s strange, because she’s the most withdrawn in the group but she’s the one seeking contact with them the most, desperate to get away, to be with any one of them every hour of every day of the week. 

Jason makes a comment about it late in the evening when the three of them are hanging out in Billy’s room and Trini shrugs it off. Jason’s eyes grow soft as they stare at her and he sighs.

“Rita really did a number on you, didn’t she?”

Trini swallows the lump in her throat and Jason grips her hand and squeezes it tightly.

She hates him sometimes.

Billy rushes off at some point to grab something from the garage and Jason and Trini are left alone.

Trini remembers her conversation with Kimberly the other night and decides, for some strange reason, to bring it up.

“Do you like Kimberly?” She asks. Jason raises an eyebrow.

“Of course I do.”

“No, I mean. Do you like her?” She feels like a fucking twelve year old gossiping about crushes and cooties and Jason probably feels the same way because he blushes deeply and stutters before taking a deep breath and sighing.

“It would never work out.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know she doesn’t like me in that way.” 

And suddenly, the situation becomes more serious, and Trini begins to feel their age as she realizes that Jason is deciding to be mature and not pursue something he knows won’t work.

She loves him sometimes.

“What about you?” 

“What about me?”

“Any ladies you have an eye on?” He asks. Trini blushes, turns away from him and looks up at the ceiling.

“No.” She says gruffly.

Jason doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

“Maybe we have more in common than we think, Trin.” 

Trini sighs.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

She leaves not long after, deciding she should probably face her parents wrath now rather than later.

They’re yelling the second she steps through the door, telling her it’s inappropriate to text during service and that maybe she’s hanging out with those ‘friends’ of her too much now and she needs to respect the house rules and something else, honestly she doesn’t know, she started tuning out the second they began speaking.

Kimberly sneaks into her room at midnight, grins widely and hugs her tightly when she sees her, asks her how she’s feeling.

Trini simply says she’s tired and curls up under the blankets.

Kimberly seems to catch on that she’s not in a great mood and keeps her distance.

So Trini reaches out behind her and simply takes her hand, and Kimberly squeezes it.

Her life goes on like this for a long time, becoming a routine that she wishes could never change.

She spends less and less time home, spends more and more time with her fellow Rangers. Kimberly sleeps over more often than not, seems to forget the chart exists and spends whatever nights she can at Trini’s.

Not that she’s complaining.

It’s a routine and Trini loves it.

School, training, home. 

But of course, everything comes crashing down eventually.

Jason’s crush on Kimberly eventually fades, as he confides in Trini one day, telling her that he’s starting to see her more as a sister than anything.

He asks her if she’s having any luck.

Trini shrugs, refuses to tell him that all that’s happened in the last few months is that she’s pretty sure she’s moved past crushing on Kimberly to being straight up in love with her.

Every time she sees her, whether it’s walking down the hallways at school, or arriving at one of the other’s place to hang out, or climbing through her window to sleepover, her heart begins to beat erratically and her palms tingle and she has to take a minute to calm herself down, but then Kimberly smiles and Trini eventually gives up on trying to calm herself down because just being in her presence makes her scared, excited, nervous, anxious and a million other things all at once.

She doesn’t say anything, but she has a feeling Jason already knows.

Zordon tells them that their bond is growing stronger and Trini can feel it.

Trini wakes with a start one night in a panic, her heart aching and her body trembling and Kimberly wakes up two seconds later the same way, and both of them simply say ‘Zack’ before they’re jumping out of Trini’s bed and rushing toward the window.

They reach Zack’s mobile home and find Jason and Billy already there, an ambulance also there and Zack sitting against the mobile home, his head in his hands and sobs escaping him as paramedics carry his mother into the back of the ambulance. 

They huddle around him and hug him, all five of them providing warmth until Jason drives them all to the Hospital.

Trini’s phone blows up the whole day with her parents asking her where she is, and she tells them one of her friends is in the Hospital.

They all feel Zack’s pain when the doctor comes out and tells him they did everything they could.

They all collapse to their knees and clutch their chests and howl and Trini wraps her arms around Zack and refuses to let him go.

When she finally gets home at eight at night, she tells her parents that her friend’s mother is dead in a deadpan voice and walks to her room feeling numb.

They don’t bother her.

Kimberly gets there at eleven, her whole body shaking and her bottom lip trembling and Trini hugs her and doesn’t let go of her for a long time.

Zack comes to them at one in the morning, eyes red and swollen and Trini pulls him into her bed and hugs him as he cries into her pillow, Kimberly cooing softly as she brushes his hair back. 

He leaves before the sun rises. Trini presses a kiss to his forehead and Kimberly hugs him, burying her head in his shoulder as he wraps his arms around her waist and tries to breathe.

“I don’t...I don’t have anywhere to stay-.”

“Jason said he’ll take you in until you find your own place. His mom said she’s fine with it.” Trini tells him. He nods and makes his way out of the window.

Kimberly leaves not long after, but not before she spends at least ten minutes with her arms wrapped around Trini’s neck, hugging her tightly as Trini traces small circles on her lower back. 

When she pulls away, she touches Trini’s cheek gently, brushing across it with her thumb before she presses a kiss to her forehead and leaves without another word. 

The funeral is the most depressing Trini’s ever been to, and she’s been to a few.

Her uncle, her grandfather and her cousin, all of whom she never got along with.

She’d say she was closer to Zack’s mother than she ever was with them, and she’d only met Zack’s mom a handful of times.

Kimberly grips her hand, whispers in her ear that this is her first funeral and doesn’t let her go the entire time.

It’s only them. Zack, Jason, Billy, Kimberly and Trini. Zack simply tells them his mother’s entire family is back home in China and probably don’t even know or care that she’s dead.

After the funeral, they go to the cliff above the ship and Zack builds a bonfire. He somehow gets his hands on booze, says he’s legal in Australia because the drinking age is eighteen there, ignores Billy when he points out they’re not in Australia and drinks to his heart’s content. 

He opens up to them and they listen. He tells them his mother got pregnant out of wedlock and was disowned by her family, and his father wanted nothing more to do with her when he found out she was pregnant.

She scraped what little money she had left, moved to the U.S. and began a new life.

She worked three jobs in order to get Zack into school and get him everything he could ever want.

And then she got sick.

And Zack returned the favor.

“And now she’s gone.” He says, lifting the bottle to his lips and drinking. He looks at Jason, who has tears in his eyes as he claps Zack on the shoulder and squeezes it.

The next family disaster hits not long after.

Her parents only give her a week of mourning and staying out late at night to be with Zack before they start to return to normal.

She comes home at eight a week after Zack’s mother dies and they yell at her for breaking curfew.

She toes the line of her rule breaking for two weeks before it reaches boiling point and she gets caught. 

Kimberly sneaks through her window as usual, and they eventually fall asleep beside each other, Trini going through her usual routine of calming herself down from the fact that she’s sleeping beside Kimberly Hart, that she needs to stop being so gay for once in her life and just sleep, but when she does eventually fall asleep, Rita Repulsa is glaring down at her.

Her hand snakes around Trini’s throat and squeezes, and Trini tries to fight her off but all Rita does is wrap a hand in her hair and pull it sharply, golden fingers grazing the skin of her neck, inches away from her jugular as she leans in, almost as if she’s about to kiss her. 

“You can’t escape me, Trini.” She sing-songs, and Trini tries to push her off again, but all it does is tighten her grip in her hair as she suddenly raises the scepter in her other hand and stabs the mattress beside Trini.

She hears the sound of a gasp, and she looks down to see Kimberly looking up at her with wide eyes, blood pooling around her shirt from where the scepter has pierced her and Trini screams.

She screams and she can’t stop screaming and she suddenly feels a sting hit her cheek and she’s waking up in someone’s arms.

She’s breathless, gasping for air and Kimberly is holding her and stroking her hair back, whispering nonsensical words and Trini tries to warn her, but it comes out unintelligible, and then her door is opening and her light is being flicked on and Kimberly doesn’t seem to care, keeps holding her as Trini freezes in her embrace. 

They yell for a very long time. Kimberly apologizes to them profusely and leaves and Trini wants her to stay.

They’re yelling at her so loudly that the boys wake up and ask what’s going on. Her father tells them to go back into their room and sleep. 

Her mother glares at her, asks her why she’s doing this to her.

“I’ve cared for you, I’ve loved you, I’ve supported you, and this is how you treat me? You sneak people under my roof? Who is she?” 

Trini wants to reply, wants to say Kimberly’s her girlfriend, not only to spite her, but because she wonders what it would sound like out loud, but she bites her lip and shrugs.

“A friend.” Is all she says instead.

“What kind of friend?” Her mother growls. Trini glares at her.

“What does it matter?”

“Trinity Rodriguez, you better answer me-.”

“Answer what?” She snaps. Her mother squares her shoulders.

“Is that girl your...your...” She can’t even get the word out and Trini stares at her in disgust.

“Girlfriend? No, Mom, she’s not.” Her mother breathes a sigh of relief and clutches the cross at her heart and her father smiles knowingly.

“Of course not, we know-.”

It leaves Trini before she can stop it, her palms sweating and her heart racing.

“But I am gay.” 

She’s not sure what happens after that. Everything becomes a blur.

There’s a lot of crying.

A lot of begging, a lot of denial, a lot of yelling, too. 

Her father says something that Trini doesn’t hear, and then he’s grabbing her arm and dragging her into her room. He shuts the door behind her and she can still hear them yelling in the hallway.

They’re probably deciding what to do with her.

She’s made up their minds for them.

She’s not ready, not in the least bit, and she didn’t plan for this to happen, but it’s happening and she needs to move.

She grabs her clothes and shoves them into her bag, goes into the bathroom and grabs her makeup and toothbrush and everything that’s hers. She reaches under her bed and pulls up the loose floorboard, grabbing the small stack of cash she’s been saving for this exact moment ever since she was fifteen. 

It’s sad that all her things fit into two duffel bags, but she leaves through the window and doesn’t look back.

For some strange reason, her first instinct isn’t to message one of the other’s and ask if she can crash at their place. Instead, she texts Kimberly and tells her everything’s fine and begins making her way to the ship.

She stops at the cliff and puts her headphones on and meditates, cries a little while she meditates, then dives off the cliff into the water and makes her way into the ship itself.

Alpha 5 asks her if everything is okay and she asks it if she can stay on the ship for a while.

Zordon tells her there’s some rooms, and Alpha 5 leads her to them.

She picks the closest room, opens the metallic door and looks inside the room to see it’s literally like a jail cell.

There’s a bunk bed, a toilet in the corner and a sink with a mirror hanging above it.

Trini sighs, but figures she at least has the bare necessities and sets up her new room.

The ship is a horrible place to sleep.

It’s constantly whirring now that the Five Rangers have been resurrected and its services are needed. A deep, hollow, metallic sound echoes throughout and constantly wakes her up the second she drifts off to sleep, but it’s the most peace and quiet she’s had in a long time.

Alpha 5 can occasionally be heard walking around, and Trini can’t help but smile when he stops in front of her room every once in a while, looking through the small square mirror in the door to see if she’s okay. 

Her alarm goes off way too soon and she can feel the fatigue already taking over her body from the lack of sleep.

Alpha 5 tells her there’s showers around the corner, and she grumbles out a thanks and makes her way toward them.

She gets ready for school, or detention she should say, thanks Alpha 5 and Zordon and tells them not to say anything to the others.

They seem concerned, but promise her they won’t. 

When Trini arrives at school, Kimberly immediately runs over to her, and Trini fakes a smile and tells her everything’s okay. She just can no longer have visitors over at night. 

“Will you be okay? Your nightmares are pretty bad, Trini.” She whispers softly. Trini fakes another smile and nods.

“I’ll be okay, don’t worry.”

She dozes off during detention and eventually falls asleep altogether, and Jason’s the one to wake her up, shaking her gently before telling her in a hushed tone that they’re heading to the ship to train.

She gets a text from her mother asking her where she is a week after she moves out.

She tells her she’s safe.

Her mother doesn’t reply.

Trini takes it as confirmation that she’s officially disowned.

She lives on the ship for a month before the others find out.

Three weeks after she’s kicked out, Zach shows up on the ship in the middle of the night and asks Zordon if he can stay.

Trini arrives back at the ship at around two in the morning after going to the twenty four hour laundry mat to wash her clothes to find him talking to the pixelated face on the wall and they both stare at each other in surprise for a long time.

“What are you doing here?” They both say at the same time. Zack sighs and scuffs his feet against the duffel bag he has on the ground.

“Jason’s great and all, but...I can’t do it anymore. I just wanna be on my own.” He says. He waits for Trini to say something, and she crosses her arms over her chest and shrugs.

“I told my parents I’m gay and they kicked me out.” He whistles in sympathy.

“Harsh.” He says. Trini rolls her eyes, walks back to her room and Zack follows her. He takes the room beside her, and Trini, who’s starting to get used to the sounds of the ship, falls asleep.

When she wakes up screaming, Zack is there to comfort her this time instead of Alpha 5, his strong arms wrapping around her and Trini clutches him and wishes that she felt even the slightest twinge of attraction to him because if she did, it would mean she’d have a home to go to instead of a ship that’s sixty five million years old. But right now, she wishes it were slimmer and slightly less toned arms wrapped around her, hugging her tightly, and the tears fall from her eyes before she can stop them.

A week after Zack moves in, they’ve all just finished training for three hours straight when Zack offhandedly says he’s going to get cleaned up and Billy looks at him in confusion.

“What, here?” Zack freezes. Jason looks at him and his eyes widen as he connects the dots.

“You told me you were staying at a friend’s!” He exclaims.

“Nice job, moron.” Trini grumbles at Zack, who sighs.

“It’s fine guys, this ship is fun and I have Trini-.”

She glares at him and he shuts up.

“You have Trini? Wait, what do you mean? Trini, you live on the ship too?” Kimberly says, looking between them both in shock. Trini sighs.

“I told my parents I’m gay and they kicked me out, it’s nothing.” She says.

“How long ago?” Kimberly asks, her voice quiet.

“I-.”

“The night they found us?” She asks. Jason, Billy and Zack are watching them both anxiously, and Trini bites her lip.

“Yeah.”

“That was a month ago, Trini.”

“Yeah.”

Kimberly stares.

Then she turns on her heel and storms out.

“Wait, Kim!” 

Jason moves to go after her, but Trini grabs his arm.

“Let me.” She moves instead, rushing off after Kimberly, who stops just at the bottom of the water that leads out of the ship.

“Kim, stop.” She grabs her hand and Kimberly yanks it out of her grip.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She hisses.

“It’s fine, Kimberly-.”

“It’s not fine, Trini! This whole time I thought you were safe at home-.”

“I’m on the ship, I am safe, Kim.” Trini says softly.

“That’s not the point, Trini!”

“You sound like my mom.” Trini grumbles, and Kimberly glares at her.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Why do you even care, Kimberly?” Trini says, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. Kimberly’s eyes go wide.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I am! I don’t get why you care so much, you don’t see Billy and Jason blowing up at me about this! So why, why do you care-.”

She doesn’t finish her sentence.

Kimberly rushes forward, takes her face into her hands and kisses her.

It isn’t a soft kiss, either. Trini can feel her heart pounding so fast it’s about to explode out of her chest as her shaking hands grip Kimberly’s elbows and Kimberly is deepening the kiss, teeth ever so gently tugging on her bottom lip as her thumbs brush Trini’s tears away.

When she finally detaches herself from Trini, she rests her forehead against hers with a breathless and shaky sigh. 

“That’s why.” She croaks out. 

Trini is frozen, can barely move before Kimberly suddenly moves away from her and leaves, jumping up and through the water and splashing Trini with water as she does.

She doesn’t came back to train, and Trini is too much of a distracted mess to be of any use, so Jason decides they should have the day off and Zordon quickly agrees, but tells Trini to resolve her issues because her enemies won’t care about her personal issues and Trini simply nods.

Jason leaves the ship with her, and Trini doesn’t know why, but she grabs him and tells him what happened.

Jason smiles and ruffles Trini’s hair.

“Of course she kissed you. She likes you, too.”

“What?”

“You’re so oblivious, Trini, it’s hilarious.” He says, chuckling.

“Jason, I swear to god if you keep talking in code-.”

“She’s constantly touching you. Constantly. She allocated herself three slots on the chart to sleep at your place and ended up taking mine and Billy’s place on the chart as well. She wants to be around you, all the time. When you’re not around, she’s wondering what you’re up to. Trust me, Billy and I got sick of it and told her to hurry up and tell you how she felt and she turned bright red and said we were delusional. But we’re not. Anyone with two eyes can see how in love with each other you two are, except you two!” 

“It’s kind of pathetic, to be honest.” Zack suddenly says behind her, and Trini, without looking, kicks up a rock on the ground with her foot and spin kicks around to hit it. It flies toward Zack’s face and he ducks just in time, a grin on his face as he laughs.

“Don’t be mad that you’re all loved up, Trin. Now go get your girl.” He says. Billy claps excitedly beside him and Trini turns to look at Jason, biting her lip with hesitation.

“Go on.” Jason says, grinning. Trini bites back a smile and runs as fast as she can, and Zack yells out to her as loud as he can.

“You better come back home so we can gossip! I want to hear everything!” 

Trini arrives at Kimberly’s house, climbs up to her window and knocks on the glass pane.

Kimberly opens the window and stares at her and Trini smiles.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” 

Trini clambers through the window and Kimberly sighs, begins pacing as she wrings her hands, looking for something to say.

“I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“Kissing you.”

“I’m not.” 

Kimberly stops and looks at her with wide eyes.

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I thought...well, I thought-.”

“I think we both know that this was a long time coming, Kim.” 

Trini has no idea where this confidence is coming from, but Kimberly smiles and suddenly the answer smacks her in the face.

“You’re not mad?”

“Nope.”

“Can...can I kiss you again?” 

“No.” Kimberly’s face falls.

“Oh.”

Trini surges forward and jumps onto her tiptoes and kisses her instead. Kimberly makes a little sound of surprise before she wraps a hand in Trini’s hair and kisses her back. Trini smiles against her lips, hands resting on Kimberly’s waist as she wills her heart to stop racing and simply lives in the moment.

Trini eventually has to pull away though, because her toes are starting to ache from holding her up and she relaxes back down as Kimberly hugs her, her chin resting on top of Trini’s head.

“You’re so tiny.” She laughs.

“Shut up.” 

They spend a majority of the night curled up in Kimberly’s bed, half watching a movie, half making out. It alternates between soft and heated. One moment, Kimberly’s lips are gentle as they move against hers and the next, her hands are touching the heated skin underneath her shirt, moving up to her ribs and scratching harsh lines down them that leave Trini’s head spinning and her heart racing as she bites back a groan. 

This goes on for a full week before Kimberly plucks up the courage and asks her what they are.

Trini looks at her in confusion.

“Uh...”

“Are we dating?” Trini blinks.

“Uh...”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

In no time at all, rumors begin to spread around the school that Kimberly Hart is dating Trini Rodriguez. 

Kimberly does nothing to quash the rumors. In fact, she begins holding Trini’s hand in the hallways and kisses her cheek goodbye whenever they have separate classes.

The guys watch them with a mixture of adoration and fatigue. Adoration because they’re glad their two best friends are finally happy together and fatigue because they have to put up with it all the time. 

A month after they start dating, Kimberly introduces Trini to her parents as her girlfriend. 

Kimberly’s mother and father welcome Trini with open arms, and smile when they see how happy Trini makes Kimberly, and Trini cries in Kimberly’s bed that night because she wishes her parents could be like Kimberly’s.

But Kimberly holds her and kisses her tears away and Trini finds it numbs the pain. 

When Kimberly tells them Trini’s parents kicked her out, they offer to talk to her parents first, which causes Trini to have an anxiety attack, so instead they ask her if she’d like to stay with them permanently.

Trini thinks of Zack.

Tells them she already has a place to stay and she’s okay, but thanks them anyway.

Kimberly looks at her in confusion, seems to feel what she’s feeling through their bond and sighs with a sympathetic smile. 

Of course, Kimberly’s parents have rules though, and tell Trini they’re not comfortable with her sleeping over, and Trini tells them she understands.

Sneaks into Kimberly’s room at night anyway. 

She feels a little guilty, but when Kimberly starts kissing her, the guilt fades just as quickly as it came, replaced by heated kisses to the skin on her neck.

They leave marks on each other. Trini feels like she should care, but she doesn’t. Kimberly wears the marks on her neck with pride, and Trini doesn’t bother to hide the bites marks and bruised flesh on her collarbones because her shirt covers them anyway. 

As soon as they fade, Kimberly replaces them with new ones, and every time she does, Trini feels like she’s crashing into some euphoria with absolutely no way out. 

She loves every second of it.

One day, Trini wakes up in Kimberly’s bed and finds her shoving Trini’s beanie onto her head as she gets ready for school.

Another day, Trini finds one of Kimberly’s pink shirts in her duffel bag and smirks before throwing it on. 

Kimberly chokes on the bottle of water she’s drinking from when she sees Trini walking toward her in the hallway that day.

Another day, Trini arrives at school to find the word ‘dyke’ spray painted on her locker.

She glares at it for a long time until Kimberly comes up to her, looks at the locker and sighs.

“Yeah, mine too.” 

Trini flinches, waiting for Kimberly to get mad and walk away and begin to hate her, but instead, she laces her fingers with Trini’s, presses a kiss to her cheek and walks them toward Biology before tickling her ribs and laughing when Trini squirms against her with a giggle.

They survive.

Trini’s nightmares don’t go away, but Kimberly’s there to hold her and kiss her and tell her everything is okay.

Trini and Zack practically become brother and sister, to the point where Trini pays for both of their laundry to get done at the laundry mat while Zack pays for food every night after Trini argued with him for a solid hour and a half about the fact that she had a limited amount of money and no job, while he had two jobs and a bank account. They argue like they’re related, and Trini finds she doesn’t miss her family at all because of it.

Billy comes over to stay with Trini and Zack sometimes, even steps out of his comfort zone and sleeps in one of the rooms one night, and Trini presses a kiss to his cheek and thanks him. He holds her hand and tells her he’s sorry about her parents. Trini brushes it off and tells him not everyone can be as cool as his mom and he grins with agreement. He helps her with her homework when she finds out she’s failing Maths. They spend a lot of nights on the cliff, Zack always setting up a bonfire and Trini sneaks into her house late one night to grab her guitar, the one thing she forgot to bring with her. It hurts her, but she swallows the pain down, makes it back to the bonfire, plays the guitar and sings in Spanish. Jason and Zack sway and attempt to sing along, while Billy and Kimberly watch her in awe. A week later, Billy runs up to Trini with a guitar in his hands and a gigantic grin on his face, and she smiles and begins to teach him how to play. 

Jason always makes her laugh, because he continues to assume the leadership role, and only steps into it further when, a few months after they defeated Rita, some Putties spawn in Angel Grove, a result of some of Rita’s left over magic. He leads the team to victory after victory, and Trini eventually has to grip his hand and remind him that he’s an eighteen year old kid who should be having fun, too. That’s when he becomes what she likes to call ‘leader by day, party boy by night’. He’s constantly inviting them over to his house for game nights. One day, he throws a tantrum when Trini kicks his ass at Mortal Kombat, challenges her to a duel in the Pit, which she also wins, then tells her she’s the worst sister he’s ever had. She laughs and jumps on his back and he decides to run around the Pit at top speed with her clambering on for dear life, yelling at him to stop. When he does, she tells him he’s the worst brother she’s ever had before throwing up in the corner.

Kimberly asks her to Prom, Trini hesitates, not because she’s worried about going to the Prom with a girl, but because she doesn’t like the idea of dressing up and wearing heels that will hurt her feet for five hours straight. Kimberly laughs when she tells her this, asks her to do it for her, and Trini sighs but eventually accepts, and everyone realizes that maybe this isn’t some publicity stunt. Kimberly wears a gorgeous pink gown and Trini wears a simply yellow dress that puffs out at the bottom, and when Kimberly walks down the stairs of her home, Trini stares at her with her mouth dropped open in shock. Kimberly looks at her the exact same way, then laughs when she sees Trini’s wearing converse sneakers instead of heels. Trini and Kimberly go as each other’s dates, but really, all five Rangers stick to each other like glue the whole night. They dance without pause during the fast songs, and when the slow songs come on and Kimberly pulls Trini into her, Trini presses a kiss to her collarbone and looks over Kimberly’s shoulder to see Zack, Billy and Jason have formed some strange three way dance, both of them swaying on the spot and gazing at each other lovingly in mock adoration. Trini rolls her eyes and Kimberly laughs, but she pulls away and looks at Trini the same way, except without the mocking adoration. Trini smiles, grips Kimberly’s hand tighter and bites her lip before leaning up to kiss her. She can feel the stares, but she doesn’t care.

Because Trini is the kind of girl who likes climbing trees and watching wrestling and meditating with heavy metal music blasting from her headphones.

Kimberly is the kind of girl who likes diving into a pool half naked and chopping all her hair off on impulse.

Somehow, they’re compatible.

When Trini pulls away, Kimberly rests her forehead against Trini’s and smiles.

“I love you.” She whispers. Trini smiles, closes her eyes to let the words wash over her before pressing a gentle kiss to Kimberly’s lips.

“I love you, too.”


End file.
